Grumpy Mom Wants a Clean House

Yesterday, I wanted to clean house.  I woke up with a master plan and an unshakable to-do list longer than the census.

But all day long, I hit obstacle after obstacle.  More than anything else, I hate interruptions, but they were coming in fast and furious.  My son needed this, and my daughter needed that.  Here came the next daughter, then the next one.  “Mom!  Mommy! Mom!” like a machine gun preventing me from getting the cleaning done.  Each kid with legitimate needs and a few superfluous wants thrown into the mix.  A clean house would have to wait.

My oldest had just gotten over a cold and was literally bouncing off the walls with full energy.  She wanted to talk.  She wanted to jabber.  This girl wanted to bust out in song!  She was vigorously attacking all the piled-up projects she had ignored while she had been sick. 

Light-bulb!  Maybe she could help me clean house?  No, she was behind on math homework and needed to do that.

 The toddler was fussy.  Not just fussy, but whining, crying, falling apart, wouldn’t stop ALL. DAY. LONG.  I wondered if she was teething, if she was beginning to catch sister’s cold, or if she had something somewhere bothering her and no words to tell me.  She just wanted to be held, so I hefted her to my hip and kept buzzing around.

My son had a sports practice he didn’t want to go to, so I spent long minutes first tenderly empathizing, then gently encouraging, next carefully insisting, and finally demanding unequivocally that he must go. 

As I stopped everything  to drag him unwillingly to his event, I questioned whether this was worth it and if being mom meant I always had to force my kids to do what they didn’t want to do just to make them fulfill a commitment.  And all that when I knew he actually did love this activity!  He just didn’t want to go today. 

I understood the feeling. 

I didn’t want to do today either.

So, I dropped my son off with a car-full of screaming toddler, finally made it back home and looked at the clock to see it was almost 10am.  No cleaning had been done.  My head was beginning to hurt.  Grrrr.  I really wanted to clean house today.

Meanwhile, my two oldest daughters had decided to clean up the back patio which involved massive amounts of water and lots of screaming fun.  Another day, I might’ve smiled at their sweet antics, but today it just grated on my nerves.  I told myself to be happy, they were actually ticking off one of the to-do items.  Loudly.

They were so noisy and boisterous, but at least they were occupied, so I took the opportunity to clean up the kitchen!  I wanted to give everything a good scrub-down.  But first, I needed to start a load of laundry. 

Oops!  I needed to empty the dryer before I could change the clothes in the washer into the dryer to start another load, but there were no empty laundry baskets anywhere to be found.  Commence laundry basket search and rescue mission. 

Having located the laundry baskets still sitting full in the kids’ rooms, I emptied them, and finished up all the laundry swap-a-roos.  I would fold all of this later, hopefully.  Sometime. 

Eventually I would get a clean house, right?

Next, I zipped back into the kitchen. I couldn’t clean the counters until I loaded the breakfast dishes, but oops!  I forgot I needed to unload the dishwasher first. 

So, I opened the dishwasher door where my fussy toddler immediately began unloading everything faster than I could grab them out of her little hands.  “No!  Not that one!  That’s glass!”  Swoop!  I scooped her up and deposited her in the family room, where she promptly collapsed into a puddle of tears.  Ok, no dishwasher unloading for now, let me get the baby playing with something.

Meanwhile the big girls came marching in the back door with wet, muddy feet.  Oh no!   Guess we’ll have to mop after we sweep.  Add that to the list.

By now the baby had found a doll to play with (score!), so I sent my oldest up to do math and told my other daughter to go clean her room.  But if I had only known what that meant…

Seizing this opportune moment of quiet, I dashed off to the kitchen to unload the dishwasher.  Glancing at the clock, I was sure I could get this finished AND reload it with the dirty breakfast dishes before jumping back in the car to go pick up my son.  Success! 

After loading the littles again and making another car-trip to pick up a very happy boy who had enjoyed practice after all, we were all home by 11:30 where I informed all the kids we were going to work hard together, do chores, and clean house, starting with cleaning rooms.  Nods all round, everyone was on board.  Only a few lost hours, we could still do this!

My 6-year-old had already begun her room and asked for some assistance, so I headed up there with my tag-along toddler to find Mount St. Helens.  Like a gurgling, ballooning, volcano of continuous lava, there were toys, papers, and dirty socks oozing out of every orifice.  One large, disturbing pile dominated the room.  Clean house?   Ha!

The toddler underwent a transformation.  Fussy?  No way!  With great delight she grasped at all this wonderful novelty and began to pull and toss to her heart’s content with happy squeals.  Her sister started screaming, “No!  Don’t touch that!  Mom, I can’t do anything with her in here!” As she snatched a toy out of baby’s hands, the little one burst into a loud wail. Again.

Read: Catch Up with Maestra Mom

Overwhelm

I hadn’t banked on this ginormous pile of clutter.  Spending three hours frittering away the morning and another three hours helping my kids declutter their rooms had not been in my master plan for the day.  When was I actually going to get to clean house?  As in, break out the cloths and peroxide?  We couldn’t even get past the surface stuff.

I saw my grand plans for a clean house eek away like an ocean wave that splashes down and retreats into the darkness.   Noooooo!  Where had my daughter been stuffing all of this junk?  Had the McDonald’s toys grown and multiplied?  And somehow her brother’s room looked almost the same!

By now all the kids were unhappy and letting me know about it and that’s when I felt a moment of total overwhelm.  I had hit the ground running in the morning from the moment I jumped out of bed with my big plan for the day and hours later I had accomplished…nothing.  Nothing.  If anything, the house was more of a disaster than before. 

Kids were screaming.  I felt myself melting.  I had a headache.  My throat was hurting.  I was tired.  I was discouraged.  There was no way I could do this today.  There were six loads of laundry needing folding, grumpy kids, an even grumpier mom, a screaming toddler, a dirty house, a muddy floor, and a mountain of toys needing a new home (or a trash bag).

READ: Overwhelmed Mom: 5 Steps for Less Stress

So what happened next?

I’ll admit it.   I lost it.  I didn’t handle my moment of overwhelm the way that I would have liked.  At first, I went into full sensory overload. I literally covered my ears and yelled at them to all stop screaming. Haha, the irony!

And then I remembered the secret stop button.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that two secret ingredients can usually reset a tumultuous household. 

Feeding the soul & feeding the body. 

Yep, God & lunch!

I snatched up my screaming toddler and plopped her into the high-chair for lunch.  With a mouthful of banana, I knew she would have to stop fussing long enough for me to be able to think.  My oldest sensed my need for a break and came running over to assist in getting food ready for her sister.  Blessings on her!

Now, our family tradition is to do a Bible devo over lunchtime.  We read scripture, work on memorization, and talk through God’s word as we eat so we can make sure to get some Bible study done everyday.  But today, I was too agitated and overwhelmed.  So it brought tears to my eyes when my little guy said, “Mom, today, why don’t we just pick a book of the Bible and hit play on your phone and we’ll all just listen to God’s word while we eat?”

So we did.  I needed it as much, if not more than the children.  We fed our spirits and we fed our bodies. And you know what?  We all felt much calmer and stronger after lunch. 

God’s word dripped into our hearts and I prayed with my children for forgiveness of my short temper and impatient attitude.  He filled us with peace and enough energy to get back and do what needed to be done.  I apologized to my kids for snapping at them and losing it.  They quickly forgave and jumped into the work with willing hands.

A Clean House

We put on our game faces and dove into house-cleaning together!  First, we got the littlest one down for a nap and then all joined hands to fold all those baskets of laundry and get them put away.  Afterwards, we got rooms cleaned up and even a few bathrooms sparkling and fresh.  We actually did accomplish a great deal, but there was something else God was trying to teach me that day.

Did we get all the house cleaning done?  No.  Not even close.  But hearts are more important than houses.

See, later on, the monster of Mom-guilt hit me hard.  I felt like a horrible mom. I had modeled impatience, short temper, and bad attitude to my kids.  Shame on me. 

But I knew that was the voice of the Father of Lies talking to me, so I turned him off and chose to listen to another voice.  The voice of forgiveness and of love.  The voice that told me I had also modeled some other things as well – humanity, humility, hard days, seeking the Lord, and forgiveness. 

Because that’s real life.  Not everyday is our best day.  Not even close. 

The heart of man plans his way,
    but the Lord establishes his steps.

Proverbs 16:9

I had made a master plan in the morning, but God had something else in mind.

We’ll clean house another day.